History Sorta Repeats Itself

December 28, 2016

Going back 240 years, the Continental Army was in tatters as they amassed on the shores of the Delaware River for a night river crossing -- in freezing temperatures -- that was about to change history. All odds were against them. These were dark times for the thirteen colonies, who were facing the strongest military in existence. It would be seven more years of armed conflict before the Revolutionary War officially concluded.

The great Tom Paine once said:

These are the times that try men’s souls.... Tyranny like hell is not easily conquered yet we have this consolation with us, the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.

It is not only a reminder that this nation was born under great turmoil at great cost, but also that the promise of American democracy was worth every drop of blood shed. Since those words were uttered, most human beings born in the US, now have Constitutionally protected civil rights, and that's a huge step in the right direction, but it wasn't without hardship and struggle -- and its not far enough.

King George III was a very powerful man, one of the most powerful on Earth at the time, and he was backed up by very powerful corporations with their own private armies, too. That didn't stop our revolutionary forebears from snatching this nation from the jaws of a corporate-supported monarchy. It shouldn't stop us from snatching a real democracy from the jaws of the corporate-controlled government now shackling our economy, the natural world, and our very lives.

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Move to Amend has thousands of organizers across the country and is constantly engaging and empowering democracy movement recruits in passing the We the People Amendment to bring forth a democracy where corporations are not people, all people are people, and money is just money--not speech.

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Multi-national corporations degrade and destroy the environment in search of natural resources and easy profits. They claim patents on natural seeds and flood the food chain with GMO's, pesticides and herbicides. They override local laws and ordinances to force their big box stores into communities and put small businesses out of business. They spend enormous sums interfering in our elections, and they never die or go to jail. Corporations are connected to just about every problem we face, including the President-elect.

Move to Amend is a coalition of hundreds of organizations and hundreds of thousands of individuals committed to social and economic justice, ending corporate rule, and building a vibrant democracy that is genuinely accountable to the people, not corporate interests. We call for an amendment to the US Constitution to unequivocally state that inalienable rights belong to human beings only, and that money is not a form of protected free speech under the First Amendment and can be regulated in political campaigns.